Fundamentals

galley: Roman war galleyAlinari/Art Resource, New YorkThe term strategy derives from the Greek strategos, an elected general in ancient Athens. The strategoi were mainly military leaders with combined political and military authority, which is the essence of strategy. Because strategy is about the relationship between means and ends, the term has applications well beyond war: it has been used with reference to business, the theory of games, and political campaigning, among other activities. It remains rooted, however, in war, and it is in the field of armed conflict that strategy assumes its most complex forms.

Theoreticians distinguish three types of military activity: (1) tactics, or techniques for employing forces in an engagement (e.g., seizing a hill, sinking a ship, or attacking a target from the air), (2) operations, or the use of engagements in parallel or in sequence for larger purposes, which is sometimes called campaign planning, and (3) strategy, or the broad comprehensive harmonizing of operations with political purposes. Sometimes a fourth type is cited, known as grand strategy, which encompasses the coordination of all state policy, including economic and diplomatic tools of statecraft, to pursue some national or coalitional ends.

Strategic planning is rarely confined to a single strategist. In modern times, planning reflects the contributions of committees and working groups, and even in ancient times the war council was a perennial resort of anxious commanders. For example, Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War (c. 404 bce) contains marvelous renditions of speeches in which the leaders of different states attempt to persuade their listeners to follow a given course of action. Furthermore, strategy invariably rests on assumptions of many kinds—about what is lawful or moral, about what technology can achieve, about conditions of weather and geography—that are unstated or even subconscious. For these reasons, strategy in war differs greatly from strategy in a game such as chess. War is collective; strategy rarely emerges from a single conscious decision as opposed to many smaller decisions; and war is, above all, a deeply uncertain endeavour dominated by unanticipated events and by assumptions that all too frequently prove false.

Clausewitz, Carl vonStaatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preussischer KulturbesitzSuch, at least, has been primarily the view articulated by the greatest of all Western military theoreticians, the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz. In his classic strategic treatise, On War (1832), Clausewitz emphasizes the uncertainty under which all generals and statesmen labour (known as the “fog of war”) and the tendency for any plan, no matter how simple, to go awry (known as “friction”). Periodically, to be sure, there have been geniuses who could steer a war from beginning to end, but in most cases wars have been shaped by committees. And, as Clausewitz says in an introductory note to On War, “When it is not a question of acting oneself but of persuading others in discussion, the need is for clear ideas and the ability to show their connection with each other”—hence the discipline of strategic thought.

Clausewitz’s central and most famous observation is that “war is a continuation of politics by other means.” Of course war is produced by politics, though in common parlance war is typically ascribed to mindless evil, the wrath of God, or mere accident, rather than being a continuation of rational diplomacy. Moreover, Clausewitz’s view of war is far more radical than a superficial reading of his dictum might suggest. If war is not a “mere act of policy” but “a true political instrument,” political considerations may pervade all of war. If this is the case, then strategy, understood as the use of military means for political ends, expands to cover many fields. A seeming cliché is in fact a radical statement.

There have been other views, of course. In The Art of War, often attributed to Sunzi (5th century bce) but most likely composed early in China’s Warring States period (475–221 bce), war is treated as a serious means to serious ends, in which it is understood that shrewd strategists might target not an enemy’s forces but intangible objects—the foremost of these being the opponent’s strategy. Though this agrees with Clausewitz’s ideas, The Art of War takes a very different line of argument in other respects. Having much greater confidence in the ability of a wise general to know himself and his enemy, The Art of War relies more heavily on the virtuosity of an adroit commander in the field, who may, and indeed should, disregard a ruler’s commands in order to achieve war’s object. Where On War asserts that talent for high command differs fundamentally from military leadership at lower levels, The Art of War does not seem to distinguish between operational and tactical ability; where On War accepts battle as the chief means of war and extensive loss of human life as its inevitable price, The Art of War considers the former largely avoidable (“the expert in using the military subdues the enemy’s forces without going to battle”) and the latter proof of poor generalship; where On War doubts that political and military leaders will ever have enough information upon which to base sound decisions, The Art of War begins and concludes with a study of intelligence collection and assessment.

To some extent, these approaches to strategy reflect cultural differences. Clausewitz is a product of a combination of the Enlightenment and early Romanticism; The Art of War’s roots in Daoism are no less deep. Historical circumstances explain some of the differences as well. Clausewitz laboured under the impact of 20 years of war that followed the French Revolution and the extraordinary personality of Napoleon; The Art of War was written during the turmoil of the Warring States period. There also are deeper differences in thinking about strategy that transcend time and place. In particular, differences in contemporary discussions of strategy persist between optimists, who think that the wisely instructed strategist has a better than even chance (other things being equal) to control his fate, and pessimists (such as Clausewitz), who believe that error, muddle, and uncertainty are the norm in war and therefore that chance plays a more substantial role. In addition, social scientists, exploring such topics as inadvertent war or escalation, have been driven by the hope of making strategy a rational and predictable endeavour. Historians, by and large, side with the pessimists: in the words of British historian Michael Howard, one of the best military historians of the 20th century, most armies get it wrong at the beginning of a war.

Table of contentsIntroductionFundamentalsStrategy in antiquityMedieval strategyStrategy in the early modern periodThe French Revolution and the emergence of modern strategiesStrategy in the age of total warStrategy in the age of nuclear weaponsArms controlStrategy and wars of national liberationStrategy and terrorismThe transformation of strategy in the 21st century

Click anywhere inside the article to add text or insert superscripts, subscripts, and special characters.
You can also highlight a section and use the tools in this bar to modify existing content:

Add links to related Britannica articles!
You can double-click any word or highlight a word or phrase in the text below and then select an article from the search box.
Or, simply highlight a word or phrase in the article, then enter the article name or term you'd like to link to in the search box below, and select from the list of results.

Note: we do not allow links to external resources in editor.
Please click the Web sites link for this article to add citations for
external Web sites.